The African Learning Group on Poverty Reduction Strategies and the Millennium Development Goals (PRS/MDGs-LG) is an initiative of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). It was established in February 2001 as the African Learning Group on Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP-LG) at the urging of member States and following multi-country missions for extensive consultations with stakeholders. The impetus for it came from the 1999 decision of the Bretton Woods institutions making the preparation of country-owned poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSP) a pre-requisite for debt relief under the enhanced heavily indebted poor countries initiative. In the wake of that decision, ECA, together with the World Bank convened a consultative group of African countries in 2000 to explore the implications of the PRSP for countries of the region.
The purpose of the PRSP-LG was to provide a forum for African peer-learning, experience-sharing and for the articulation of an African voice on the PRSP. The LG executed its objectives primarily through: i) in-house research; ii) annual consultations (meetings) with African senior policy-makers, PRSP experts, key NGOs; iii) case studies reviewing the experience of selected countries with the PRSP content and process, and iv) advocacy. The country studies and annual deliberations were organized around five clusters of issues: - i) the comprehensiveness of growth strategies underpinning the PRSPs; ii) PRSP-related financing and public expenditure management issues; iii) the depth and legitimacy of the PRSP participatory process; iv) national capacity needs; and v) the extent to which donors are adjusting their aid policies and practices in line with the principles underlying the PRSP approach.
The LG held 3 annual meetings and commissioned 24 country studies. In December 2003 a stocktaking exercise was undertaken to comprehensively review the experience of the Learning Group. The main conclusion of the stock-taking exercise was while the PRSPs had had positive effects on the content and process of development planning, African governments needed to do more to articulate pro-poor policies and Programmemes, address HIV/AIDS, address the missing middle - from growth strategies to poverty reduction; improve public sector financial management; address capacity issues; institutionalize consultation mechanisms; and improve aid management, aid predictability and harmonization of donor Programmemes.
Complimentary to the annual meetings, ECA launched in 2005 the web-based Enhancing Knowledge Sharing to Support the Poverty Reduction Process in Africa project to create a mechanism for enhanced sharing of existing knowledge, while at the same time encouraging the creation of new knowledge on poverty reduction strategies.
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